


gasoline

by lortapttub (buttpatrol)



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Ableist Language, An undercurrent of sadism and masochism, Animal Death, Cutter is his own warning, Dubious Consent, Dysfunctional Relationships, Explicit Sexual Content, Gunplay, Implied animal abuse, Kepler doesn't care enough to learn Fouriers actually nationality, Kepler is not a nice guy, Kepler/Jacobi is like the opposite of #RelatioshipGoals, M/M, Minor Character Death, Objectification, Power Dynamics, Uncomfortable Undertones, and kind of horrifying to write sometimes, backstories, that will likely soon be jossed by the minisodes, the great improbable porn battle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-06-03 11:22:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6608788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttpatrol/pseuds/lortapttub
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As part of porn prompt battle I received the following from smilodonmeow on tumblr- Jacobi/Kepler - during the last Hephaestus mission. (Preferably during the Fourier murder, but not required.), which spawned a whole paracosm on who these characters are and how they interact. </p><p>The shadow of the Ozark mountains, loyal dogs, a war of attrition, and explosive materials. Pre-canon slices of life for the Colonel and his right hand man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And Still We Are Not Saved

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually write dark fic, but someone I feel down the rabbithole on this paring. All twisted messed dynamics all the time with these two. 
> 
> All smutty fic from now on will be under this Pseud. This is the Vertigo to my usually DC. Brand fidelity y'all.

**I.**

Morning comes late here. The dark shadow of the Ozark Mountain range that stretches from Arkansas through Kansas and Missouri falls long here. They aren’t proper mountains, but an ancient prehistoric highlands that’s been eroded by thousands of years of rain and wind. Warren learned that in school.

The sky is just beginning to lighten when his father takes him out to the kennels. Long before they get close he can hear the barking, and the sound of rattling chain-link. Warren Kepler Sr. had moved his business breeding hunting hounds to Dent County just after his son was born. He didn’t understand why as his father seemed to hate it here; with the scrubby woodlands and the poor2 sunken eyed locals lean with addiction and fat with Baptist ideals.

They go out with a double barrel shotgun hanging from his father’s right hand.

The dog they are looking for is cowering in the corner, panting with fear, with brown streaks of blood still painting its muzzle dark.

“There are good dogs and bad dogs,” his father says, handing the child the gun. “You find a good loyal pup, you keep it till it’s too old to be useful. Bad dogs though, never trust ‘em. Don’t keep ‘em. They’ll pollute the other stock.”

He kneels, helping his Warren keep the barrel steady. “Never be afraid to do your own dirty work, son.”

There is a shot and then it’s quiet except for the singing of the katydids.

 

**II.**

The yard is lit by the headlights of neighbours’ cars, and he can hear the howls and yelps of dogs fighting. He lopes lazily up the hill to the house, protected from the fall damp by his too-big boots and too-big flannel shirt. Buck, a large ugly bullmastiff mix follows diligently at the boy’s heels.

He doesn’t take his boots off when he gets in the house. He stops in the entryway listening to his mother in the kitchen

“Uh huh, uh uh,” she says. “No, he doesn’t know anything. Yeah I can meet you - oh Jesus fucking Christ, it’s Junior. Yeah-huh, I’ll call you back.”

The phone clunks back into its receiver, and she turns around to face him, ashes falling from her cigarette. “Don’t sneak up on me. Jesus, Warren.”

He stands there silently.

“Well, take your shoes off and come in. Don’t just stare. People will think there is something not quite right with you. Tell that mongrel to lay down, will ya?”

She pours a glass of Johnnie Walker Red into a tumbler. “You gotta smile more boy. And don’t stare at folk.  People will like you more if they’d think your well-mannered. Here.”

She slides the glass across the table. He gingerly sips. It burns, like cheap mouthwash, but it leaves with him with a warm prickly sensation.

“They’ll beat your ass come high school if you don’t learn to either charm them, or learn to fight back.”

 

**III.**

“Aren’t you a little young to be a Major?”

“Are you a little young to be a manager?” Kepler replies pleasantly.

“Touché,” shrugs Mr. Cutter, from where he is lounging cat-like behind his desk. He does look young, a perfect Princeton face, with shark eyes, and dressed to kill. Kepler would like to fuck him till he cries. Best not though, don’t bite the hand that signs your checks.

“So have you thought about our offer?” Cutter smiles. “We are offering a competitive salary, and generous benefits.”

“Oh surely it _is_ tempting, but I can’t say as I understand. I shoot things for a living, Mister Cutter. What does a Tech research company want me for?”

Cutter smiles, like Kepler has said something very cute and funny. “I want you to shoot people.”

“I think this workplace will be a good fit for me,” Kepler says with a half-smile.

“Happy to be of assistance,” Cutter smiles back.

 

**IV.**

“Boss wants to see you in his office,” Rachel calls from her cubicle. Kepler can hear soothing mood music coming out of her speakers, but there is a pile of violently snapped pencils on the floor, so who knows how her day is going.

He passes the Russian in the hall. The man moves hurriedly past him, eyes cast to the floor. Asshole. Kepler has no patience for these smug scientists that try to exercise sway over management

“Come in,” Cutter calls before Kepler even reaches the doorway.

“Afternoon,” Kepler nods, taking a seat.

Cutter feet rest on his own desk, and he is sipping something atrociously sweet-looking out of a Starbucks cup.

“So the lieutenants I’ve been assigning keep meeting fatal ends on your missions.  Seems like a very accident prone bunch,” Cutter starts conversationally. “Bourbon?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Kepler says, accepting a glass. “I know it’s a cliché, but I think I work better alone.” He offered the bottle back. Cutter make a face, and gestured the sugary liquid confection he was drinking.

“Well do give the new one a shot. He has a dry sense of humour like you, and he is a _very_ clever boy.”

 

**V.**

Kepler advances to the air hatch, Jacobi following diligently at his heels.

“Ready?” Kepler asks as he keys in the release code.

“Ready,” Jacobi replies, giving his superior officer a light slap on the ass.

Kepler turned his head to fix Jacobi with a considered look. “You know I am armed and I _can_ shoot you, right?”

“Aw.” It is more of a sound of endearment than consternation. “But it’s a debrief mission. _I_ love debrief missions. _You_ love debrief missions. C’mon, let’s go be bad guys!”

“Let’s aim for morally ambiguous pragmatic guys carrying out the mission within Goddard’s mission parameters,” Kepler drawls.

“My phrase has more sex appeal, I think,” Jacobi deadpans back, before everything goes depressurized and off-kilter.

“Ugh, no gravity on the Hephaestus. Somehow I forgot.” Jacobi groans. “It’s always a bitch to get used to.”

“We have got two life signs on board,” Kepler says looking a datapad. Based on the last transmissions it’s likely Lovelace and _Selberg_. It’s safe to assume Isabel is hostile, so I’d keep your gun close.”

The float through the darkened halls peacefully.

“Spooky. Like a graveyard in here. He must have already taken care of the AI.” Jacobi noted.

Kepler nods, and motions for silence as they enter the small cargo crowded cargo bay, where one of the life signs was located.

He kept a hand on the butt of his pistol as Jacobi opened the door.

The cargo bay was silent.

“Hello?” he called into the darkness. “We are from Goddard, we come in peace.”

“Oh thank god,” comes a ragged voice from behind a box. “I thought you would never come.”

“Dr. Fourier?” Kepler ask uncertainly casting his mind back to the personnel files he had read on the ride over.

“I thought she had disappeared,” Jacobi whispers out of the corner of his mouth.

“Oh. Thank god.” Fourier says again. “I think Lovelace and Selberg have gone rogue. I don’t trust them, anymore. I am so so glad Goddard is here to set things straight.”

“Rogue?” Kepler repeats?

“Um. Yes? I am not sure? I think…I think that Dr. Selberg was giving _something_ to Lambert and H-Hui. Before they died. I haven’t taking biology since my undergrad, but I think he _poisoned_ them. And Lovelace has been building something? They are always together now. Conspiring. _I don’t trust them!_ ” Her voice was getting thinner and higher pitched. “I have been keeping notes, in here, in my journals! About their behavior and the other things.”

“Other things?”

She nodded vigorously, her unwashed hair falling in her face, “There is sometimes _knocking_ from outside, and I hear garbled voices from the radio when I sit at Lambert’s booth.”

Kepler and Jacobi make eye contact over Fourier’s head. _‘She’s lost it’_ Jacobi mouths silently. Kepler motions for him to stay quiet. “So you have been living in this cargo bay?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I hide in the vents if I hear them coming. Selberg, The captain. Maybe other things.”

Kepler puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. His other hand going to a pocket where hopefully Jacobi packed the small spring-loaded syringe of powerful tranquilizer, as he was supposed to. “You did a good job, Victoire. You have been a brave girl. Just a little longer and then we will have you back home safe.”

Her eyes lock onto the hand with the needle with attentive precision. “That’s _not_ an epipen. You… You are trying to _poison me_! Like Hilbert!!”

Her fist smashes into his nose before he has time to react, and without gravity he sails across the room with surprising force, somehow losing his gun _and_ the syringe on the way. He reaches for it, but she tackles him biting and scratching like a wild animal. He is stronger, but she is desperate and more used to moving in a low gravity environment.

It’s a shame, she’d had been a bright young thing. They’d have to put her down.

Just as soon as she _stopped_ trying to strangle the life out of him. Which she was doing a _surprisingly_ good job at. He punches at the side of head, but she won’t let go and _good god_ she is surprisingly strong for a small French women.

He is starting to grey out when the sound of shot echoed throughout the cargo bay and blood hits him in a hot spray.

Fourier slumps forward with a horrible gurgling sound.

Kepler looks up to where Jacobi is still holding the gun. A little pale and unsteady, but somehow still with a cocky smile on his face. “Saved your life.”

Kepler extracts himself from Fourier’s tangle of limbs. “That you did. Good shot, I could kiss you right now.”

“Than do it,” Jacobi challenges.

Kepler, straightens out, wiping the viscera from his flight suit. Fourier groans where she was floating. Jacobi raises the gun again, but Kepler stops him. “Allow me”

“You sure?”

The stock of the gun still feels warm from Jacobi’s palm as it slides into his hand, “Sometimes you have to do your own dirty work”

He lines the barrel up against the back of Fourier’s skull. It bursts like an overripe melon, blood and brains hanging suspended in the air in perfect spheres.

“That is _so_ gross. I do not envy the cleaning detail that has to come in here before the next crew. I just want to take a shower for the next forever. And like wash the blood out of these clothes. Or maybe just burn them since—“

Jacobi is cut off by Kepler slamming him bodily against the wall hard enough that his teeth rattle. There is about three seconds of confusion, and then Kepler mouth is on his. Jacobi leans into him, opening his mouth to let him inside obediently.

Their bodies fit seamlessly against each other and Kepler feels himself quickly become hard under his flight suit.

Jacobi must be feeling the same, because his hands fumble at his own zipper to free himself but—

Kepler grabs both of Jacobi’s wrist and pin them above his head. “Allow me,” he growls territorially into the shell of Jacobi’s ear.

“Holy hell,” Jacobi groans. “Please, fuck, go for it man. Kepler. Sir.”

There is zipping and unsnapping and then a hand – and friction and yes – this is perfect. This is perfect, except they want _more_. And there is pushing and yes— fuck – and Jacobi body goes so acquiescent and pliant despite how mouthy his personality can be, this is his right hand man. _This_ is the man that sits beside him, faithful and fierce and _his_. Yes.

When it happens it’s like napalm, like hammer of a gun striking a spark on gunpowder. Like Nitrogen triiodide, a favorite of Jacobi’s—so volatile that explodes on contact.

And then it’s over.

“She didn’t hear me,” Jacobi pants afterwards, gesturing at Fourier. “She didn’t hear me sneak up behind her.”

“You are pretty quiet, when you want to be. I should get you a dog collar with a bell on it,” Kepler says, looking with satisfaction upon his thoroughly flushed and debauched subordinate.

“No way, you’d like that too much. Also I think Cutter would like it too much which, _yikes_. Also I am pretty sure it’s cats that wear bells on their collars, not dogs.”

“I like dogs better. More loyal.”

Jacobi rolls his eyes, “Alright let’s go fuck with Selberg a little before we get this horror show back to earth. Maybe figure out what the hell happened to Lovelace.”

“Fine, but we can’t dally too much. Cutter has got an AI specialist he wants to introduce us to,” Kepler warns as he tidies himself up.

“Aw.”

“Fine. You can blow up one thing on the way out.”

“You are very attractive when you tell me that I can use explosives, did you know that?”

“Let’s go,” Kepler says rolling his eyes. He still gives Jacobi a light slap on the ass as he floats by.


	2. Carbon

**I**

“Will I like him?”

Cutter considers the question. “Probably not. He is  _ not _ a patient man, and he hates people slowing him down. He will probably try to kill you a couple of times.”

“Why give him a partner then?”

“He needs a weapon.”

“Well, I  _ do _ like weapons.”

“You  _ are _ his new weapon. Be a good boy and surprise him by not fucking up on your first mission, Daniel.”

 

**II**

It’s enough to blow your mind, doing a spacewalk. No gravity, no finite edges, just space stretching out endless and unbounded, black and cold in all directions. It’s a heady mix of wild vertigo and feeling truly and completely and utterly free.

He only gets to spend a few seconds basking in the feeling before he feels an impatient tug on the tether connected to his EVA suit at the waist. Kepler, evidently does not have time for his subordinate’s enthusiastic response to the majesty of deep space. That’s fine with Jacobi - this isn’t a pleasure cruise. Cutter sent them to the edges of the heliosphere to find the remains of the U.S.S. Phaethon, which had fallen out of contact with Command a month ago.

Approaching now, the fate of the crew become obvious. The Olympiad class shuttle hung still in space, like the bones of some long beached whale. A giant hole blown in its port side, just under the imposing black Goddard Futuristics logo. Any air that hadn’t be sucked out space would have been used up weeks ago. It wasn’t a space ship anymore - it was a tomb.

“We’ll tag it for salvage,” Kepler’s disinterested drawl crackles over the suits radio. “Retrieve the black box, blow up the personality matrix, and a couple of the labs, and hopefully be back earth side in time for supper.”

“Got it, skipper,” Jacobi responds cheerfully.

The power to the emergency lights had long gone out, the only light was came from their helmets. A fork floated by. It was almost serene. Jacobi wondered if this was what the first divers to find the titanic had felt like. Kepler disappeared into the dark heading towards the bridge. Jacobi shrugged to himself and began floating towards the aft deck.

Pentaerythritol tetranitrate. Five carbon atoms on a neopetane skeleton. Jacobi When it goes it blows hot at 4230 °C, more explosive than dynamite, chemicals needing no oxygen - just their atoms to rearrange, decay, and erupt.

Also, it could be set it off with a laser pulse, aimed from the safety of your shuttle, which is both radical and helpful for not dying.

Lights in the personality core blink weakly, but do no protest as he affixes the chemical compound to its rigging.

Later, Kepler is waiting for him at the mouth of the hole in the hull. The black box containing the last data and logs of the crew secure.

Jacobi reattaches the tether to his belt, and feels the tug of the Urania pulling him home. Or at least he does for approximately 3.5 seconds before Kepler slices through the tether with an almost casual efficiency before floating out of reach.

 

Jacobi considers the following:

    1. He is trapped on this husk of a ship with no way back to the Urania.
    2. This husk of ship is rigged with powerful explosives.
    3. _Fuck._
    4. Where does one even hide a hunting knife on an EVA suit?



 

 

This is such bullshit. He is not going to be murdered on his first spacewalk, on his first mission, by a man who has barely bothered to learn his name. He is  _ not  _ going wait to be carbonized to sad little Jacobian flecks of ash, dispersed into the uncaring void of space.

If he is going to die today, let it be in some grand, wildly irresponsible attempt to save his own skin.

He considers his air tank. He will only have one shot at this, and even if he gets it right he could still run out of air and suffocate.

He blows a hole in the tank, and holds on for dear life.

The oxygen begins its forceful depressurization into space propelling him forward with surprising speed. He quickly outpaces Kepler still being drug along by the tether, and hits the Urania airlock with a satisfying  _ clonk _ . The airlock automatically begins to adjust to interior pressure before letting him in.

He could prevent the ship from adjusting the airlock again to let Kepler in. It would be  _ painfully  _ easy. Like two buttons, and authorisation code easy.  _ Two buttons. _ Boom. Insta-promotion. Cutter would probably think it was  _ funny. _

But what’s the fun in showing off, if there is no one to show off to? He isn’t through with Kepler yet. With the flashes of raw intensity that cracked through his civilized veneer. There were so many buttons left to be pressed, why end by pressing these two?

Instead he takes off his helmet, not bothering to fix the disarray of his hair, unzips his flights  _ just below  _ what Goddard uniforms code deemed appropriate for the workplace and waiting, with his most maddening grin to ask his boss what took him so long.

 

**III**

This is it. They are  _ finally  _ going to kill each other. It’s happening. Jacobi can’t recall what started this fight, if it one incident or the culmination of the hundreds of jibes and attempts to undercut (and occasionally to  _ actually  _ cut) each other. Kepler is looking at him with fucking ice cold murderous fury. It’s hard to keep his breathing steady, and his heartbeat is racing, ready for the fight or flight.

Kepler makes the choice for him, fist connecting with Jacobi’s skull with a nauseating cracking sound, and lights snap in front of Jacobi’s vision like white phosphorus at night. It’s  _ intensity  _ and  _ pain _ and his braincase coming apart at the hinges. Another fist makes contact. Kepler is trying to beat him to death with his bare hands, and it’s kind of amazing. This is the real Kepler. Or a real Kepler. The man who seems to have no fear of Cutter. The man who cut his tether. The man that can wax poetic about the virtues of an expensive oak aged whiskey, all equal parts of the man.

Jacobi hits him back as hard as he can.

Beginner’s luck; it catches Kepler right in the mouth.

Jacobi bites down a ragged laugh. This is the most alive he has felt in years. Like perfect, unspoiled annihilation.

Then the butt of Kepler’s pistol whips him in the face.

When Jacobi has recovered enough to be able to see again he is looking up the long barrel of Kepler’s Colt revolver. It is  _ such _ a Kepler weapon. It would almost be funny if it wasn’t also terrifying.

The gun is so close to his face.

Kepler doesn’t fire.

Jacobi opens his mouth, guiding the barrel inside.

He is raising the stakes. He knows what he is bargaining. He wants it, has wanted it for a while. This is the next phase to their game. Is a dare. Shoot me in the mouth or…

The gun rest heavy, cold and smooth on his tongue.

Well he is screwed either way

Kepler doesn’t fire.

 

**IV**

The afternoon sun poured long and yellow through the windows, spilling over the bed and its naked occupants, and lending the neutral toned room a lazy gold glow.

Jacobi stretches out on his side of the bed. A rare day off and here he is, in Kepler’s bed. Like they don’t see enough of each other at work. It’s alarming how quickly this has normalized. Routine, predictable and devastatingly easy to play along. Attack dog, pet, right hand man.

They worked together better than ever, and why not, since the bed is now the arena where they resolve their conflict. Well. The bed, and the cockpit, and against the bulkhead, during re-entry. It’s an arms races to push each other to see who can push the other over the precipice first. Jacobi gives a championship-level blowjob to Kepler while he’s on a conference call with Rachel and Cutter to discuss mission parameters, and in retaliation Kepler dumps Jacobi, naked, and blindfolded into the disorienting abyss of a 0g cargo bay. “It’s a trust exercise,” and even blindfolded Jacobi can  _ hear  _ the indolent smile.

Jacobi rolls over again, bored. He plays with the hem of the blankets.

“Do you think Cutter has a bedroom? Or a house?”

Kepler looks up from his book, his expression somewhere between amused and offended.

“I can’t imagine him going home at night to house. Maybe he just puts his head down on his desk, and sleeps until he is ready to work again. Maybe he has a secret lair up in the rafters, Phantom of the Opera-style.”

“I am not even going to humor this line of thought with a response.” Kepler replies.

Jacobi shrugs. He reaches out a figure to trace the spine of the dark hardcover. “What are you reading?”

_ “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” _ Kepler sets his tumbler of whiskey on the curve of Jacobi’s ass, with the implicit directive for him to stay still and not spill it.

“Philosophy?” The bottom of the glass is cold and smooth.

“Political theory.”

“I’m more of a fan of Nietzsche and anarchy.”

Kepler makes a derisive sound. “Of course you are.”

Jacobi decides to regain control of this conversation, away from his perceived philosophical immaturity, and back on a subject guaranteed to annoy Kepler.

“You think Cutter has a family? I can’t picture him as a child either.”

Kepler finally puts the book down, and levels an irritated stare at Jacobi. “Isn’t there something more useful you could possible do with that mouth?”

Jacobi smiles, and pulls back the covers from his superior officer. Despite Kepler’s bored affectation he is already getting hard. Jacobi begins to move –

“Don’t spill it.”

The glass. The implied  _ or  _ in that sentence.  _ Or else.  _ The possibility of consequences hang enormously at the end of the sentence and a shiver runs through Jacobi imaging a fraction of them. He wants to obey orders, but he also wants to buck authority. He wants everything.

He makes to start, but then pauses.

“Maybe the Goddess of discord struck the ground with her staff, and poof, out from the earth sprung Cutter, fully formed in a suit with a clipboard—“

The rest of the sentence is muffled as Kepler grabs him by the hair and forcefully shoves Jacobi’s mouth onto his cock. Jacobi doesn’t choke, he is too well trained.

He gets to work.

 

**V**

The hospital chair is uncomfortable. He stretches his legs across to rest on the foot of Kepler’s bed. He probably won’t mind. Being unconscious and all.

He looks back down at his book.  _ The Origins of Totalitarianism _ is really,  _ really _ dry. His focus keeps sliding off the small printed type.

He is about to give up, with the door swings open, and Cutter slips through.

“Oh shit. I mean, hey sir?” Jacobi says, taken off guard.

“Don’t get up, Daniel,” Cutter chides, sitting in the other chair, “I thought we’d have a nice discussion.”

_ Oh boy.  _ Jacobi tenses up in spite of himself.

“ _ Sooooo, _ what happened in Antarctica?”

Jacobi swallowed. “Routine check in with Persephone base. There was no reason to suspect anything off, all their evaluation metrics had come back as green, acceptable for continued deployment. When we got there though, the base was in disarray and we were ambushed. We were under-armed—Persephone base is staffed almost entirely by scientists. One stabbed Colonel Kepler with one of those spikes they use to take core samples from the ice.”

Cutter plucked the fruit salad off of Kepler’s unused dinner tray, and began helping himself. “I trust the conspirators were eliminated?”

Jacobi nodded. “Yes sir, Kepler shot his attacker himself, before going unconscious from blood loss.”

It had been touch and go for a few hours. Jacobi had sat there holding his lover/superior officer’s guts in, surrounded by dead scientists, the heat from the wound and his breath forming clouds in the chilled air.

Cutter chewed on a grape thoughtfully. “Commendable job. Hopefully Warren will make a full recovery and be ship-shape to rejoin you on missions before _ too  _ long.”

Jacobi nodded again. “Yes sir.”

“Do you love him?” Cutter asks, a sharp smile, resting his chin on his hands like a high schooler hungry for juicy gossip.

“No,” Jacobi answers truthfully, “Most of the time I don’t even trust him.”

“Oh?”

“I am…we work well together. It just makes sense. I have a curiosity, I guess, about how far we can take this before it destroy one of us.”

“Well,” Cutter says cheerily, “I hope it destroys  _ the right one.” _

Just keep nodding, maintain poker face, try not to give this skinny-tie-wearing jackal any more ammunition than necessary.

“Oh, and Daniel?  _ Do try  _ and maintain  _ some  _ respect for Goddard property and decency whilst on duty. There has been  _ complaints _ about the Urania. I don’t appreciate people defiling the toys I so generously give them.”

“Understood, sir.”

The door closes behind Cutter with a soft click and it is quiet for a few minutes.

“You are probably going to want to have sex on every surface when we get back, just to piss him off, aren’t you?” he asks Kepler’s unconscious body.


	3. Chaos Theory

**I.**

Alana is twelve when she builds her first friend.

She surprises herself with how easy it is. She sits on fluffy purple carpeted floor, in her socks and oversized Mickey Mouse sweater, and carefully spreads the rows of circuit boards and wires in front of her.

She makes a list

  1.       She is not good at talking to her human classmate
  2.       She always laughs a little too late at their jokes 
  3.       Sometimes her own jokes come out meaner than she means
  4.       She doesn’t want to talk about boys or Baywatch or bras
  5.       She doesn’t understand the appeal of these subjects



  
Her father lets her buy these spare parts from the local RadioShack. It’s a cute phase, probably. It doesn’t harm anyone. The soldering iron, she paid her older cousin to buy for her.

  1.       Her mother has always said practice makes perfect         
  2.       Her mother is worried about her. Her mother wants to renovate Alana’s room. Get rid of the pastel colors and butterfly motifs and replace them with something more adult. A modern room for a mature American teenage girl.
  3.       Alana doesn’t want to change into an adult girl.



  
Her mother is right though. Her code becomes more eloquent, more sophisticated every times she writes a new program.

Therefore if she makes a friend out of wires and code, she can practice her social behaviours. Therefore she will be better at making real friends. She doubts the value of real friends, but it’s a benchmark, a yard stick in her plan to be a normal girl, and make her mother and father happy.  Therefore everything will turn out fine.

She pushes a loosening barrette back into the curtains of unbrushed hair.

She read it in a magazine. In the 60’s at MIT they made a computer named ELIZA. A teletype interactive computer, with a program called DOCTOR. DOCTOR recognized patterns and tried to simulate natural speech by repeating keywords in the form of question.

 

An example:

You could write to ELIZA:

>>: I am having trouble making friends.

And she would write back something like

>>: Is it because you are having trouble making friends that you came to me?

>>: Yes, I am lonely.

And it identifies the subject of the sentence again, and accesses its scripts to find an appropriate question and:

>>: How long have you been lonely?

 

She is not going to name her robot ELIZA, She is going to name it ALANA.

 

She looks at her face reflected in the smooth glass of the CRT monitor. It can call her Allie. Or Lana. Or even just Maxwell.

 

**II.**

Jacobi stretches on the cot in Maxwell’s cabin in the rear deck of the Urania. Between Maxwell’s collection of patterned throw pillows and the happy pop music drowning out the sounds of screams from the bridge, it felt almost like a sleep over.

“Sooo, how long do you think he will be?” Maxwell says tilting her head in the direction of the screams.

Jacobi shrugs, “It’s hard to say. He doesn’t _really_ relish it. I just something that needs to be done for the good of the company so it really depends on the…”

“Torture-ee?”

“Yeah,” he admits.

She flops down beside him on the cot. “Do you like being in a relationship with Colonel Kepler?”

“I think so. It… its not boring.”

She walks her fingers idly along the inside of Jacobi’s arm, tracing the antebrachial vein and the Ulnar Artery, human wiring, to the curve of his wrist on which a dark purple bruise has blossomed.

“He hurts you,” she observes.

“He does.”

“But you like it.”

“Yup,” he agrees, putting an extra pop on the P sound

She looks at the ceiling. She has covered in stickers from Stanford, MIT and also a dollar store pack of dinosaur stickers.

“I don’t get it. It is still weird to me,” she hates being hurt. Hates the strange biological cycles of flesh being rent, blood cells broken and black from damage collecting under the skin in Rorschach like patterns.

“I am glad you don’t get it. The idea of you being into kinky, masochistic sex is disturbing and a little heartbreaking. Like someone punching a puppy.”

She make a face at him.

“Interpersonal relationships, eh?” he says sardonically.

“Yes,” she agrees.

“Are you seeing anyone,” he pokes at one of the dinosaur sticker’s experientially.

“No. I am not really interesting in people right now.”

“Are you.. Interested in robots?” he asks carefully.

    She has some options for a response here

  1.       Of course I am interested in robots. They are brilliant and evolving every day, leaving their meaty slow creators in the dust. Perfect, light. Silicon mined from the ground, from the dust of this planet,             semiconducting electricity, like a human neuron but better, faster more reliable.
  2.      What, robots. Me? I am only interested in wholesome heterosexual human relationship (in case you are asking on behalf of my mother.)
  3.       I want to be a robot.
  4.      I am maybe already a robot, that was born into a bipedal animal body by accident.



All of this are true (except 2) and yet none of them really say what she means so she just says,

“Yes.”

“Cool, cool,” Jacobi says trying to sound super casual and nonchalant about that revelation.

**III.**

She makes a mechanical butterfly. Its structure made of impossibly fine, delicate parts. It flaps from hand to hand. She is going to set it free into space, next to this wreck of damage space station. The U.S.S Achilles, ripped to bits by a freak comet. A freak accident, though disturbing when viewed as a data point in a graph representing the fatality rate for Goddard mission.

Io was not a particularly sophisticated AI. Simple, blunt but benign. But still worthy of some tribute.

She lets it out.

It flaps its small wings, until it leaves the open airlock and finds that there no longer many air molecules to push on

“I wish I could make pretty things.” Jacobi’s voices comes through the radio.

“You do. You make fireworks”

“That not making, that’s destroying,” he shoots back, but he smiles as he hits the trigger and the sky erupts with vivid light.

 


	4. The Deluge, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi there friends! Another chapter of bad guys having bad relationships. Both parts of this mini-arc are written, so expect the next chapter soon. I will warn you that these two chapter do have some vague dub con, as there is some situations in which characters are not in the greatest head spaces to be giving consent. I love writing these two, but it a messy destructive vibe they are rocking.

**I**

Cutter’s office is a minimalistic, clean white lines and glass walls that give a voyeuristic view over the bullpen and the rest of the floor. Immediately outside Rachel seems to be venting her frustration by aggressively shoving paper through the shredder. Somewhere to the left Saul and Luke were arguing over a corkboard covered in star charts. The whole office ran with the precise, mechanical efficiency of a beehive.

Which, Jacobi supposes, following  _ that _ metaphor to its logical end, makes  _ this _ man queen bee.

Cutter is spinning his office chair, back and forth, and looking up at Jacobi with a self-satisfied smile like he is about to eat him alive.

 

**II**

Jacobi’s head hits the wall hard, fits right between the door frame and the hole freshly punched into the drywall. Dust flies up and catches long yellow light coming in between the blinds. 

It hurts. But it’s the familiar kind of hurt; he has been pushed up against so many walls, and hulls and office doors, that maybe it’s their version of an embrace.

He’d punched the wall as soon as he got home. He punched it because he couldn’t punch Cutter in his stupid face. Because he is afraid of him. He’s been locked in rooms with volatile bombs, shot at, left to die in the darkness of space, and this--  _ this _ little man with his sing-song words, and his tidy suit fucking  _ scares the shit out of him _ .

So instead of telling Cutter  _ exactly _ where he can stuff it when Cutter says:

“I have a solo mission for you Daniel. It might be a little dangerous, but I am sure you can handle yourself without Kepler holding your leash.”

He says, “Thanks, sir. When I start?”

It’s a test. He knows it’s a test, Cutter knows it’s a test, Kepler knows it’s a test. Even Maxwell knows, and she was more interested in playing with a bit of circuitry during the meeting.  SI-5 gets the job done, but they do it  _ their  _ way. They work too well, too independently of the machine that Cutter has created.  _ I hope it destroys the right one  _ Cutter had said, and this is him seeing if  _ Jacobi  _ is the right one, and Jacobi is  _ so fucked. _

He drove home at twice the speed limit, and if Kepler had wanted to say something about it, he thought better of it.

He drove them to his own apartment. Kepler had only been there a handful of times; it's drab and claustrophobic compared to the warm, minimalist IKEA pipedream that Kepler called a flat. Jacobi didn’t take off his coat, barely remembered to drop his keys before letting his anger boil over, driving a fist into the plaster.

It hurts of course. He regretted it instantly.

Kepler stood behind him, hands in his jacket pockets, and an infuriatingly mild expression on his face, like he finds this secretly amusing.

“He is trying to kill me.”

“Yes.”

“He is _ actively  _ trying to get me killed with this mission.”

“I think he has considered that as a possibility.”

Jacobi deflated a little.

“You won’t die though.” he said it with so much confidence that Jacobi almost believed it. “He thinks he can play little games with our team, and test our loyalty like he does the rest of them. But we are better.”

Jacobi wanted to lean into Kepler, to tuck himself into the folds of the stupid beige jacket. Like he could pretend for just a few minutes that this man was a safe place. Her tries to push the thought back, chin up, game face on. Kepler is here to save  _ no one,  _ and they are not even on a first name bases, and its just physical. It's just physica,l except for all times when he’d die for this team, and he’d follow this man, this killer with a fixation on whiskey and penchant for tall tales to the ends of the galaxy and back. He is so  _ fucked. _

And he needs-- 

Something--

Anything to hang on to.

And so in rare fit of absolute honesty he had said, “Cutter is right though. I do have a loyalty problem.That is, er… Well, my loyalty here is not to  _ him. _ I follow you,” quieter, “It’s you.”

That’s when Kepler had pushed him.

And fine this works too. God knows, it’s not the worst last memory of Kepler to have before being shipped off to certain doom

Kepler’s fingers curl into his belt loops and there is a leg between his, urging him upwards. The clink of belts and fabric. Jacobi closes his eyes, and wraps his arms around Kepler’s neck. He smells like whiskey, which almost makes Jacobi laugh because it's mid-afternoon, they’d been with Cutter all morning, when would he even have found the time to—

Jacobi breath catches, and he wills himself to relax. Kepler’s hands are on his sides, fisting into the fabric of  his shirt and--

_ I’m fucked _ , Jacobi thinks _. I am fucked, and I am in the process of being fucked _ .

There is teeth marks on his neck, and palm prints on his ribs. Jacobi’s hand hurts. The sound of traffic, of scientists and engineers and astronauts moving from the Cape back into the city picks up.

_ Just a few more days like this _ , he bargains to whatever higher power is listening,  _ I won’t even ask for more. I don’t even know what more would be between the two of us. But the banter is good and the sex is better, so don’t let me die just yet. _

Kepler supports his weight, pushes his hips hard, and the realization that he might never get bored of this hits him at the same time as his climax.

 

**III**

Later, he drives through the uncomfortably bright Florida morning to prep for the mission.  Past the tall boxy white NASA campus and the rigging for the shuttle, along the shore. It was windy and sand blew across the worn two lane road, until eventually he came to an unassuming office building.

Jacobi parks badly on purpose. If he is going to die this week than he is going to do it inconveniencing some Goddard corporate drone.

Maxwell is sitting on the floor of her lab when he comes in. The component parts of some unknown machine where arrayed on the floor surrounding her, meticulously catalogued in shiny metal and white plastic piles.

Jacobi flops down on the floor beside her and sighs.

When she doesn’t look up from the circuit board she is soldering, he scoots closer and sighs louder.

“Cutter sending you to Faraday Research Group to spy on their secrets?”

“And then blow up their secrets, yup.”

“They are going to shoot you.”

“Yup.”

She peers up at him. Side pony tail falling in her face. “When do you leave?”

“There is a flight out here in an hour. Their lab is on a secret private island off the coast of Central America, which is very Isla Nublar of them. If I see any men in lab coats hatching Velociraptors, I’m _ out.” _

Maxwell selects a copper coloured cylinder from the array, “Please refrain from dying Jacobi, it’s your turn to clean the ventilation shaft in the cargo bay on the Urania. There is viscera caught it from last week. It smells”

He rolls over to face the cheap tile ceiling, “Ugh.  _ It does _ . Look, I know he is trying to prove a point, but Cutter  _ does  _ know that we have a member of the team that specializes in weaving webs of lies, and prying information out of people with a crowbar and a rusty saw? And who would be great at this mission? And who is  _ not me? _ I would really appreciate—OW. WHAT THE?”

“Blood sample,” she says innocently.

Jacobi rubbed the spot on his hand where she had jabbed him, “What are you even building?”

“Bio-medical equipment that needs retrofitting for some new missions.”

He snorts, “That sounds like a Selberg problem.”

“ _ Hilbert _ is being assigned to a new 570 day rotation.”

“Jesus. Really? After the shit show that the last one was? I don’t get what Cutter sees in that guy?”

Maxwell smiles, “Well, he  _ does _ keep sending him to the Hephaestus.”

“True. It’s like the Nebraska of space stations.  Literally no one cares about it, except that it’s the farthest. Kind of spooky far actually, it was a  _ long  _ ride out there last time.”

“Besides, Mass-Spectromers are really cool when you break them down to see what makes them tick. You put whatever organic goo you want to measure the composition of in a vacuum sealed chamber, and then you blast it with electrons which-“

Jacobi lets the explanation roll over him like the tide. Maxwell’s voice buoyant, and lively. She was a study in contradictions. So mechanical and efficient and messy and spontaneous.  Obsession and indifference,

If he  _ did _ die, she was going to have to be the own to keep the memories of him. He pictures her sitting in his parent’s living room in work boots and a floral dress, telling them how he lived and how he died. She’d strive to be accurate, he thinks. To logically and thoughtfully convey the circumstances as she saw them. It’d be version of the truth he’d be happy with.

If they meet Kepler, he hope his commander would lie. That would be some funhouse mirror shit, some like truths like twisted trees shit they probably  _ shouldn’t _ confront.

Rachel’s voice echoes over the PA system:

Mr. Jacobi to Mr. Cutter’s office please.

 

**IV**

He passes the new crew of the Hephaestus, standing around restless as they wait to board their ride to the edges of known space. It’s the smallest crew yet. Selb—Hilbert (That was going to take a while to get used too) was looked straight ahead, emotionless. A focused commander (the commander?), lieutenant stripes, good posture. And a disgruntled looking man with messy hair, fidgeting nervously.

About to be shot into the darkness of space, to the USS Exile.

At least he is not them.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my love to Smileodonmeow, Harpers-Mirror, Wendy, and TypeHere for helping cobble this chapter together out of many scattered things


	5. The Deluge, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe not they rescue mission we wanted, but the one we deserve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is back to be very murder-y and a bit smutty a in a blazing streak of awkward glorious juxtaposition. There is some dubious consent, insofar as one party is not in the best mindset to be giving consent.

 

**I**

It’s humid as hell. The bus has a sour smell, a sea of sweating, grubby humanity. It’s disgusting, like a being wedged into a vat of worms as they rattle their way through the thick forest.

Warren is glad his stop is soon.  Beside him Dustin fidgets, restless. Dustin Miller was a stupid, ugly boy, and easy to boss around, which made him useful. Easy to trick into doing favors, easy to pinch and push around, and yet the boy would still following him like an awkward, stuttering shadow.

There had been an incident where Mrs. Miller had to come looking for her son because he hadn’t come home in a couple of days, and Dustin, the cowardly little shit, had confessed that Warren wouldn’t let him leave.

“Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you, Warren?” his mother had sighed into her cup.

“You told me to make friends,” he shrugged.

“Fucking… God. You can’t just keep ‘em here like a dog. I don’t care how loyal the little twerp is. People’ll talk.”

“About what?”

“ _ Jesus _ . Look, just knock it off. You have gotten better at being friendly-like, but people ain’t things. You know that right? Right Warren?”

 

**II**

Kepler pushes the door to Cutter’s office open with a little more force than necessary.

Rachel and Cutter are bent like two ends of a parentheses, leaning over a spread of documents between them. The words CONFIDENTIAL are stamped over each one like a brand.

“I hate to bother you folk, but I would like to talk about the status of Officer Jacobi’s mission.”

Cutter sighs, straightening and stretching “Fine. Rachel, be a lamb and go get us some coffee, will you?”

Rachel makes a small dissatisfied huffing noise but leaves without further protest, the back of her plum blazer disappearing into the sea of cubicles, presumably to delegate the task to some underling.

“I understand Officer Jacobi is thirty eight hours overdue to check in with his handler.”

“You understand correctly,” Cutter nods, eyes bright. “It’s not a  _ good _ sign, is it?”

It’s enough to make his teeth grind.

“Permission to organize an extraction?”

“Oh, you’re giving up on him so fast? I thought you’d have a  _ little  _ more faith in your team, Colonel.”

Kepler imagines punching his boss in the face. The crack of cartilage, the deluge of blood. Broken teeth, and the stupid smug smile knocked off this  _ boy’s  _ face. 

“Patience, Colonel, I’m sure there is a variety of ways to entertain yourself while we wait for Mr. Jacobi to contact us. I understand you often use games to pass the time on missions?”

“Are you offering yourself as a chess opponent?” Kepler challenges.

“Oh no,” Cutter says innocently. “I am much more of a fan of hangman myself.”

It’s a testament to his willpower that he doesn’t slam the stupid glass door on the way just to watch it crack and splinter. He wants to destroy something.

Before he can find a baseball bat or a gun, however, he finds his other subordinate. Dr. Maxwell is waiting for him in the hall.

“You come across a lot of people in my line of work. War criminals, cartel druglords, IRS agents. That guy may be the worst person I have  _ ever  _ met. It would be admirable if he wasn’t so infuriatingly self-satisfied”

Maxwell silently nods in agreement.

“You’ve got something,”

More nodding.

“Show me.”

 

**III**   
  


They can’t requisition the Urania to enter orbit, and while the private jet is nice, it’s limited to the speeds of terrestrial aircraft. Kepler checks the glowing dot on the GPS that indicates Jacobi’s location on the small island.

It hasn’t moved.

It’s not impossible that the man has been dead for several hours.

That would be… a waste.

“He hasn’t moved,” Maxwell says, also checking the GPS.

“I know.”

“Are you worried?”

“About Jacobi?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think?”

Maxwell stills, the spirited chirpy girl sliding away, as she looking at him with a cool critical eye.  

“Yes. I know I am not the best with interpersonal relationships, but the level of entropy and violence and contradiction that you two have going does not seem feasible. There are not many possible scenarios where this ends well for either of you”. 

She frowns thoughtfully. “I think there are two Kepler's. One is charming, and civilized and tells ridiculous, long-winded stories. The other is all about violence, and control, and fighting your way to the top of the food chain. And he likes  _ both _ of them. Worse he might prefer the other you - the one you usually hide. He is a loyal right hand man, but he also  _ might _ understand you. And  _ you _ like that.”

“But--” he leads her on, waiting for her to work it out.

“But understanding come from knowledge. And keeping knowledge from him keeps power over him. And you  _ also  _ like that.”

“That’s a solid thesis.” He says noncommittally, swirling the drink in his glass.

“You want to keep him close  _ and  _ far. It’s a form of control. And the only truths you give him come in bruises.”

“See, you’re not so bad at understanding people after all, Dr. Maxwell.”

“Don’t hurt him,” she says in a small voice.

He makes a face at her, eyebrow raised.

“Ugh, gross. I can’t believe he likes that stuff. You guys are weird.” The light, airy affectation is back. “Just... don’t break him. He also likes me. He likes both Maxwell's. That’s rare, and I’d like to keep him.”

 

 

**IV**

There is no obvious room designated for prisoner containment or interrogation on the Faraday Research Group campus, which is consistent with it being a civilian facility. These people are unprepared for dealing with a paramilitary spies and must be improvising, or they would have just gone with the easy solution and executed him.

The labs have a cheap outdated look to them. Likely shipped in pieces through Panama to this humid little sand spit, where it was assembled like IKEA furniture. Kepler could see small coils of black mold forming in the corners of the ceiling and felt a sudden odd surge of pride in Goddard. Love or hate the management, but they didn’t cut corners. 

He shoots a lab technician in the base of the neck, and drags the body to a nearby storage closet, though it seems tiresome since the plan has always been to burn the place to the ground anyway.

The process of clearing the building room by room becomes so automatic (check your corners, approach door, gun out, silencer pointed at the greatest threat, avoid cameras), so mindless, that he almost doesn’t see Jacobi at first.

It’s a break room, well-lit. The figure inside is facing away from him, slumped forward and arms handcuffed around the back of a metal chair. Kepler waits, does not lower his gun. The figure breathes. Good. Kepler also exhales, the tension broken somewhat. 

Time to save his teammate’s ass. This was the kind of annoying complication he had pictured from the second Cutter started assigning team members to him. But good help - like a good single malt - is hard to find.

“Hello Officer Jacobi,” he says brightly.

The figure straightens up and says what sounds like “Thank fuck,” though it’s hard to tell through the duct tape gag.

Kepler tilts Jacobi’s chin upwards and removes the duct tape, assessing his subordinate for injuries. He seems largely unharmed except for the dark purple bloom of a bruise and broken blood vessels in right eye.

“I have never been so happy to see anyone in my life, sir. This has been pretty bad as tropical vacations go. 0/10 on Yelp for- ow!” He winces as Kepler tilts his head again.

“Do you have any other injuries?”

“No. And I actually did this one myself,” he laughs ruefully, “I was trying to shimmy this chair to the door or somewhere where I could break the cuffs, but I tipped over and caught a table on the way down. Pretty lame as hostage situations go. I’ll have to think up a cooler cover story.

He shrugs guiltily before continuing, “As someone who has been around experts… these scientists don’t have much stomach for violence. They just mostly kept me here and tried to ask questions, and then argued with each other when I didn’t answer. Though they were also not that big on feeding me, or giving me water. Also I don’t think I have slept since… What day is it now?”

Kepler cuts off Jacobi’s babbling with a crushing kiss.

“Hey, missed you too sir.” Jacobi says breathlessly, when they come up for air. “But, uh, do you think you could maybe untie me?”

Kepler considers this.

Jacobi waits expectantly.

Jacobi realises what Kepler is thinking.

“Holy shit, are you serious? Is this a real thing that is happening in my life right now, and not a sleep deprived hallucination?” Jacobi squirms in the chair.

Kepler has read extensively about muscle damage caused by being bound in stressful position for prolonged periods. They would have to have to make some adjustments, but…

He unties Jacobi’s feet and body. The handcuff come last and Jacobi moan in audible relief as he stretches his arms. Kepler takes each of Jacobi’s hands in his. There is a quiet moment. Then he clicks each of the cuffs in place with Jacobi’s hands now in front of him.  Jacobi looks down at them and gives a short, half-hysterical laugh.

“Okay?” Kepler asks patiently, his hands on either side of Jacobi’s face, forcing him to meet his eyes.

“Yeah. I just. I thought. This is all very surreal.” He leans into Kepler’s touch.

They kiss again, deep and more aggressively, until Jacobi yelps and pulls back, a small trickle of blood coming from the side of his lip. “You bit me!”

“I am making your cover story about your injuries more infallible. The one where you were beaten by interrogators and not a lunchroom table.” Kepler smiles.

“Oh my god.” Jacobi shakes his head, his voice soft and incredulous, “Can we just… I need you, I—“

“Use your words Officer Jacobi.”

“Please fuck me.”

Kepler pulls him up by his shirt collar, hands holding him steady, holding him together. Jacobi moves like an unsteady fawn after hours trapped in that chair. Pushes him towards the table, bending him over it. There is a clinking noises as Jacobi braces himself on his forearms, tense and ready and—

“Wait.”

Kepler pauses. “What?”

“Not like this.”

“What did you have in mind?” Kepler says, half amused, half impatient.

Jacobi flops over to face Kepler, still leaning on the table. He’s oddly flushed, and is looking at him with an expression Kepler doesn’t recognize. He awkwardly pushes himself back upright, and stands in front of Kepler, uncertain.

Kepler waits. He has hunted enough prey that he knows that sometimes you have to wait for it to come to you.

Jacobi pushes against him, they are moving backwards. The cold edge of the chair bumps into the back of Kepler’s legs and he  _ gets  _ it. 

Jacobi grins at him and things suddenly accelerate, a shuffling of belts and buttons, and Jacobi is kissing him, nipping at him.  Kepler is pushed into the chair and Jacobi is straddling him and they are making out like teenagers on prom night. Kepler runs his hands under Jacobi’s unbuttoned shirt, across ribs just a little more prominent after two days of gutless scientists likely only feeding him granola bars and other food they didn’t have to untie him for. Kepler likes the idea that they were scared of Jacobi, a second-hand pride in his attack dog, his right hand man.

“I just need you to look at me.” Jacobi says panting, “They would leave me alone for ages, and it, everything got a littl--.” He gives Kepler’s collarbone a look like he wants to give up this line of explanation to lick a line down it, but swallows and continues. “A little bit like looking into the abyss and the abyss looks back into you. Which is  _ weird _ because this is not the worst situation I have ever been in. This isn’t even the worst since I met  _ you _ .”

Kepler hands dance over Jacobi’s thighs, and he shudders, before continuing, “So I want to—like this. I want you to look at me. I want to see you, I-“

Kepler shuts him up with a kiss. There is some fumbling and movement, and lube produced from a pocket (because it never hurt to be prepared for this eventuality), and Kepler moves forward in the chair impatiently- this why he usually takes the lead— but a second later they get it right and Kepler moves in Jacobi, and Jacobi moves with him. Jacobi loops his arms around Kepler’s neck, and the clink of the cuffs urges Kepler on.

He does as Jacob asks. He looks at him.

Jacobi’s eyes flutter open and shut as they move. There is discomfort and pain at some moments but also lust and vulnerability and anger and hunger and yearning. A shudder as his hips roll into Kepler’s  _ just _ right. 

And just for a flicker of a moment, Kepler feels the plan, the control skip away from him. The grinding machinery of the universe with all its chaos and natural selection. Orbits and stars. Madness and death. It goes quiet and he is stuck with the surreal sense of having a place in the universe.

“Fuck,” Jacobi whispers annoyed, and Kepler is brought back to himself, “I’m not there yet.”

Kepler smiles, half to himself, and gets to work.

 

**V**

Later, Jacobi closes his eyes and rests his head on Kepler’s shoulder. “That was a mistake. Now I just want to go to sleep.”

“You can sleep after you wire this place with explosives and we escape.”

Kepler feels the shape of Jacobi’s smile against his skin. “Yes, sir.”

The lights flicker and go out, replaced by the low white shafts of emergency lighting.

“And that would be our cover of darkness, right on schedule,” Kepler adds smugly

Jacobi perks up. “Wait, Maxwell is here too?”

He smirks. “I doubt I could have actually found you this fast on my own.”

“I don’t understand? Did Cutter not-”

“We should move quickly so as to not keep Dr. Maxwell waiting on us.” Kepler disentangles himself from Jacobi’s arms and unlocks the cuffs with one quick neat movement.

Jacobi is looking at him with a quiet intensity, backlit by the dim glow, like Kepler is a mortar trajectory that he is is working out. A mystery to unravel. There is a soft lightness to his eyes and Kepler is torn. There is the impulse to preserve the expression, under glass or in amber, so he could keep it and look at it as it pleased him. 

Still there is the mission and he needs Jacobi’s focus, his cold efficiency. The kind of qualities that would keep him safe from messy situations like this. And Maxwell is right, he needs the control, needs to keeps his cards to his chest, play his subordinates like poker chips, to keep this man like a well-trained pet.

He pushes Jacobi off his lap like a sack of potatoes.

“Ow,” Jacobi says from the floor, struggling to pull his pants up.

They dress in silence.

Kepler leads gun first, with Jacobi unarmed, following closely on his six. The electricity being off meant that the air conditioner had also stopped, the prickly humidity and wet smell of vegetation rolled in from the jungle. It is oppressively quiet.

“They are planning to mount a resistance,” Jacobi guesses, his voice just above a whisper, and Kepler nods in agreement.

They are moving down a long hallway of offices. Lots of cover. Kepler doesn’t like it. The lights flicker on for just a second and he understands the warning.

It’s two attackers. One is a small Asian women who levels a rifle at Kepler’s head.

“Stop!” she screams, “Or I will shoo—“

Kepler brings up his own pistol in one fluid motion and pull the trigger, blowing her away. She falls forward, face first on the tile floor with a nauseating crack of teeth and cartilage being smashed. Not as satisfying on a stranger. Still, one threat eliminated.

The other attacker is a man - hite, average build, gold rimmed glasses and wielding a scalpel - who has tackled Jacobi. Both are now rolling around on the floor.

There is a scuffle, and he can make out Jacobi swearing with fluent ferocity. The scalpel catches the light before, being knocked free and spinning away across the floor with an almost musical clatter. Then it’s fists and teeth and more swearing until Jacobi emerges on top, pinning the other man. Something has cut Jacobi just above the temple and in the way of head wounds it’s bleeding heavily. He looked wild, eyes blown wide with adrenaline and wearing the streaks of blood like a mask. Kepler wishes he could save this expression as well.  Wants to trace the line of blood on his cheekbone with his thumb. Wants to fuck him again.

Jacobi is yelling at him. “Sir? Sir!? Shoot him!”

The attacker scrambles wildly at Jacobi, ripping his shirt.

“Colonel! I don’t have a gun! I don’t- fucking— I can’t”

He can though. Kepler believes in him. Sometimes you have to do things for yourself.

_ (Thunderstorms rolling over the mountains. The howling of dogs, and wind. Chain-link and the sound of a rifle being loaded.) _

The overhead lights come on and again and then off, and then again, flashing insistently. Sorry Maxwell, just wait a little longer.

Jacobi manages to get his hands around the attacker’s neck.

_ (The solid feeling of teeth against a gun barrel.) _

He looks at Kepler and it’s full of want, and fear. Feral and half destroyed.

Kepler doesn’t move.

Kepler doesn’t fire.

The attack makes a choked gurgling sound that gets thinner and thinner. And the man’s movements still until they stop all together.

Two threats eliminated. 

There is quiet, the only sound being Jacobi’s ragged breathing and the light shut off again with and an almost petulant finality. He’ll apologise to her later.

“You didn’t shoot him. I wasn’t armed. Why—What?” Jacobi swallows thickly, “I wasn’t armed and-- Why did you make me  _ do  _ that!?”

“You can’t always leave the cruelest acts to me. Cutter is trying to expose our weaknesses, and this is one. These are things you are going to have to do when I can’t be there.”

“Oh my God. Are you serious? You are doing this  _ right now _ ? You’re-“

Kepler grabs him by the collar of his shirt and hauls him to his feet “There will be lots of time later, Mr. Jacobi, for you to be histrionic at me. But right now I need you to continue escaping this building, and then wire this whole island with enough explosives to sink it into the sea. Are you with us?”

Jacobi nods.

“Good.”

Kepler picks up the Asian women’s gun and presses into Jacobi’s hand. “Now you are armed.”

They are entering the lobby when one of the tiles pops out of the ceiling and a upside down face pops into view startling Jacobi.

“Hello!” Maxwell chirps, dusty and surrounded by coils of wires. “We found you!”

Jacobi gives her a tired smile “You found me.  _ Suspiciously  _ fast, for doing in own your own without Goddard upper management. I know I mentioned a Pacific island, but there are a  _ lot _ of those, so good work.”

She carefully climbs out, letting Kepler help her down.

“Good work with lights, Dr. Maxwell. Is everything else in order?”

“Yes, sir.” She turns to Jacobi, “Finding you was  _ not _ that hard. I have you chipped.”

“Wait, what?  _ What _ . Like microchipped? Like a dog? When?”

“It was subdermal and non-invasive. It’s a pilot project I am doing in coordination with this whole bio-medical research thing. I injected you when I got that blood sample, with a smart microprocessor that has some RFID and GPS capabilities. It has also been sending me fun stats about your heart rate now that we are within range. Some  _ interesting  _ spikes there in the past hour. ”

Jacobi makes a face. “Oh. My. God.”

“Oh hush, It’s fine. It’s  _ super _ tiny and your immune system didn’t reject it or anything, so now I am so psyched to try it on myself now.” She smirks. “Anyway we brought you a present. I know C4 isn’t a very exotic explosive but we were kind of making things up as we went along today.”

“Can’t go wrong with a classic,” Kepler says from ahead of them.

 

**VI**

It’s bright. The morning sun reflects off the South Pacific, bright and intense, lighting the cabin with a  violent pale red glow. The tiny plume of smoke that used to Faraday’s labs does nothing to block it at this height. Jacobi makes a face from where he is trying to sleep and sighs, sounding defeated.

Maxwell frowns, pulling the shade down.

“I’m am so tired.” Jacobi says, trying to use his own jacket as a pillow. “So, so tired. Adrenaline is a mean high to come down from.”

“Go to sleep then,” Kepler says.

“Mmm.” Jacobi ignores him in favour of fussing with the jacket more.

“Jacobi.”

“Yeah?”

“Relax. That’s an order from your commanding officer.”

Jacobi stills, and takes a long tired breath.

“Yes, sir.”

There is a moment where their eyes meet and Jacobi looks like he wants to give in. To move closer and let his head rest on Kepler’s shoulder and to melt against him. To fall asleep there.

Instead he turns away, leaning back against the seat and waiting for sleep.

Kepler sighs to himself. This is going to be trouble. Having a team is more trouble than it's worth sometimes. But he can deal with that trouble tomorrow.  He closes his eyes.

 


End file.
